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Coach Allen Thursday

Head Coach Dennis Allen addressed the media following Thursday's practice.

On Tommy Kelly’s injury: “Yeah, he hurt [his foot] yesterday in practice. We chose to keep him out today. I fully anticipate he’ll practice tomorrow and be okay to play, but again, we’ll evaluate that tomorrow and see where we’re at. But he seems to think he’s going to be all right.”

On foot injuries: “You get a little nervous, but that seems to be something that’s going around the league. I know there’s been a few guys that have had foot injuries that have cost them a lot of time, so it’s something obviously we have to continue to look at and try to figure out what the reasons, why those things occur.”

On Andre Carter: “Well I’m hopeful. We’ll look at him tomorrow and see exactly where he’s at, but I’m hoping he’s going to be able to go out there and play and get some snaps for us and be a rotational type of player for us.”

On if he’ll commit to Carter being active this week: “No, not right now, but he’s getting closer every day. He’s had now two and a half weeks of work getting back into football shape. Yesterday was the first he’s actually practiced in pads, but yeah, I’m getting more comfortable with where he’s at.”

On the game: “It’s a chance for us to go out and compete again. It’s one of 16 games and we’re not going to put any more extra added emphasis other than we know the importance of us going out and playing well and developing some confidence and winning a football game.”

On if there is an edge having coached for Atlanta: “They have a good football team and I understand what type of football team they are. I understand what type of challenge it’s going to be to go into the Georgia Dome and play this team and so I guess maybe from that standpoint I can hopefully get our guys prepared for what they’re looking for going into that environment. It’s going to be a tough place to play. They’ll be ready to go. Like I said, they’ve got a great team so it’ll be a challenge.”

On the team’s mental state: “I think it’s good. I think obviously we understand that we haven’t played as well as we had hoped. We understand we have to get better. We understand that we’ve got to improve. I think that’s the mindset of this football team and we also understand that this is not a sprint, it’s a 16-game season and at the end of the day we’ll evaluate where we’re at, at the end of the season and figure out how good or how bad we were.”

On sustaining energy during road games: “I think obviously we’ve got to do a better job coming out after halftime and establishing something whether that be offense, defense, or the kicking game. I still attribute a lot of that to our failings on third down and when you don’t get off the field on third down on defense, you play a lot plays. When you play a lot of plays, you get tired, you get worn down. And then offensively, we’ve got to find ways in the second half to sustain drives and that will help our defense.”

On definition of an explosive play: “12-yard run or a 16-yard pass, that’s the way we look at it here.”

On progress during practice of 3rd down: “I feel better. We have a significant challenge, especially with their offense. They're second in the league in converting on third downs. Pittsburgh I believe is number one. We understand that we have a challenge. We understand how they try to operate on third down. We have to try to take the things away that they do really well and make them have to do something else.”